Steven Feldman Joins Astun Technology

Epsom, Surrey, 16^th October, 2012 - Steven Feldman, has joined Astun Technology as Strategic Adviser to the Board. In this role Steven will seek to provide strategic support and mentoring to Astun as it moves to the next stage of its development as a provider of enterprise solutions to Local Government. 

Steven Feldman trained as an economist but spent the first 20 years of his working life in building materials before stumbling upon GIS. As General Manager of GDC he led a management buy out with investment support from employees. 4 years later GDC had grown into one of the leading suppliers of e-Government solutions and corporate GI to Local Government with a strong reputation for innovation and customer service. The business was later sold to MapInfo where Steven continued as UK MD and Director of Product and Industry Strategy, EMEA. In 2010 Steven   branched out on his own and holds a number of positions working as a non-executive director, strategic consultant, investor, advisor and mentor to technology startups. Steven also found time to chair the first three AGI GeoCommunity conferences and become a Special Lecturer at the School of Geography at the University of Nottingham. He helped start the Open Street Map GB project and will be chairing FOSS4G, the global conference for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial to be held in Nottingham in 2013.

“Steven knows this industry like the back of his hand and has a passion for Open Source solutions so the glove most definitely fits. We are looking forward to his closer involvement with the company as we extend our software and services across the enterprise,” said Mike Saunt Managing Director of Astun Technology.

“Astun Technology is an innovative company with exceptionally talented and passionate staff. It has a number of unique software solutions built on Open Source technologies and I am really looking forward to helping them build on their already strong foundations,” said Steven Feldman. 

Astun Technology - passionate about Geo, passionate about Open

Astun Technology is the UK market leader of geospatial solutions built on ‘Open Source’ foundations.  

Astun helps organisations to realise the power of geography whether managing assets and business processes or determining policy and strategic options, by providing access to and insights from corporate data across the enterprise and beyond.

Astun’s iShare data integration and publishing platform for Local Government, Emergency Services, Housing Associations and the wider public sector includes public facing geoweb applications that aid self-service and promote channel shift. Built on OSGeo Open Source technologies iShare also delivers enterprise corporate geographic information to the desktop, database and intranet.

Astun offers bespoke geospatial application development, training, mentoring and support plus a range of cloud services based on the Open Source Geostack. Over 50 organisations in the public and private sector have deployed Astun solutions.

+44 (0) 1372 744 009

www.astuntechnology.com

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Surrey Heath Borough Council Uses Interactive Maps for Public Consultation

Epsom, Surrey, 27^th March, 2012 - Surrey Heath Borough Council is using interactive maps for the public consultation stage of a major development, the Camberley Town Centre Area Action Plan. The maps built into Council’s website enable citizens to go online, view maps, aerial photography, download details of the proposed development and leave comments. This facility is enabled through Astun Technology’s iShare data integration and publishing platform.

Access to the consultation is via the Council’s home page, one click takes you to landing page focused on the Camberley Town Centre Area Action Plan and a further click takes you to a zoomed in aerial photo of the site. The map interface should be familiar to anyone and it is simple to toggle between aerial photos and detailed Ordnance Survey maps. As the user’s mouse hovers over the proposed development, which is layered on the map, different site specific ‘pop-outs’ appear with descriptive information and links to further detailed information. By clicking on the ‘Comments’ button you can see comments left by other people and leave your own, just click on an appropriate point on the map and leave a comment in the pop-out box. 

“You might think that collating all the comments for consideration by the planners would be a tedious process, but thankfully this has been automated courtesy of a GeoRSS feed which is linked our PostGIS database,” said James Rutter, the Council’s GIS Manager. “This means we can view all the comments as a list in a web browser or on a map in our professional or web based GIS because the precise coordinates are saved with each comment. This makes things much easier and Planning Policy are really enthusiastic about the quality of the comments coming through this channel.” The public consultation phase of this development which includes a public exhibition runs from 5th March to 23rd April 2012. 

iShare is web based software designed to provide public access to vital service information via a Council’s website encouraging people to do more things online.  It is in use with over thirty Local Authorities in England and Wales.

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West Oxfordshire and Cotswolds District Councils to Share Website and Mapping Services

Epsom, Surrey, 26^th January, 2012 - West Oxfordshire District Council (WODC) and Cotswold District Council (CDC) have entered into a ‘Shared Service’ agreement with Astun Technology. The Councils already have a number of shared working arrangements in place, including several joint senior manager posts. From 2012 they will start developing a single IT service for both councils with one of the first projects being the two Council websites and internal map based data and asset management tools using Astun’s iShare data integration and publishing platform.

iShare is designed to provide public access to vital information via a Council’s website and is in use with over thirty Local Authorities in England and Wales. It uses a citizen’s address held in the Local Land and Property Gazetteer to pull information from a Council’s numerous service delivery systems and presents it in a single view. Citizens can also carry out ‘my nearest’ searches on local facilities and services, report faults, receive alerts and much more. iShare also works internally helping different Council departments to share data and includes an intelligent mapping facility. This provides everyone working in the Council with detailed access to Ordnance Survey mapping, aerial photography and selectable overlays of Council held assets and data together with comprehensive search and annotation tools. All the software is web based, underpinned by Open Source components and can be accessed through a web browser. 

The iShare Services model takes into account existing joint working arrangements between Councils to promote ‘Shared Services’ for those organisations with limited in-house skills or infrastructure.  The lead authority, in this case West Oxfordshire District Council acts as a ‘Node.’ The ‘Sub-Node’, Cotswolds District Council, will use services provided by WODC, primarily the Internet hosting of iShare. WODC already has a standard on site installation of iShare and will perform the administration tasks for CDC. These arrangements are extremely cost effective. Under the proposed plan the ‘My Cotswolds’ site will be up and running by April 2012.

“We are essentially taking a carbon copy of what we already have here with the only real difference being the underlying data,” said Sarah Turner, West Oxfordshire’s Business Solutions Manager. 

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The rise of the Geotache!

Epsom, Surrey, 7th December, 2011 - Two intrepid Geo Professionals from Astun Technology, Managing Director, Mike Saunt and Matt Walker have spent the last month developing the latest Open Source technology the ‘Geotache’. This ground breaking work involves precise manipulation of the facial platform. The result is a highly detailed digital terrain model of the upper lip area, certain to frighten wives, children, staff and customers but all done in a good cause. Sponsored by numerous supporters working under the ‘Movember’ initiative no blade based algorithms or licensed code were used in order to prevent smoothing!

During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces in the UK and around the world. The aim of this is to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men. On Movember 1st, guys register at Movember.com with a clean-shaven face and then for the rest of the month, these selfless and generous men, known as Mo Bros, groom, trim and wax their way into the annals of fine moustachery. Supporters including friends,  family and in this case many from the Geospatial world sponsored these Mo-growing efforts.

"This has been great fun and drawn lots of comment, ridicule and I am pleased to say sponsorship,” said Mike Saunt. “I’m pleased to say that people working in the Geospatial sector have a sense of humour and generous hearts.” Matt Walker said, “once I overcame my initial reluctance to go out and brave client visits it has been very entertaining! People have been very big-hearted.”

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Huntingdonshire DC Introduces Online Mapping Service

Epsom, Surrey, July 25, 2011 - Huntingdonshire District Council has gone live with a new online mapping and information service supplied by Astun Technology. ‘myHuntingdonshire’ enables local residents to use their postcode or part address to find information about council services, and to locate facilities on maps. ‘myHuntingdonshire’ provides information about councillors, next bin collections, historic and new planning applications in the vicinity and much more. It is constantly refreshed with data from the Council’s service delivery systems and from a feed from Cambridgeshire County Council.

The ‘myHuntingdonshire’ facility comes courtesy of iShare, a software platform from Epsom based, Astun Technology. iShare is designed to provide public access to information via a Council’s website and is in use with over thirty Local Authorities in England and Wales. It uses a citizen’s address to link information pulled from a Council’s service delivery systems making it possible to do ‘my nearest’ searches, and find information on local facilities and services. 

A fully featured mapping facility is also built in. The map, centred on the resident’s address is capable of displaying multiple layers of information, making it easy to carry out searches in a more intuitive way.  iShare’s ‘MyHouse’ facility provides gives summary information drawn from the Council’s own data such as bin collection dates, Council Tax and planning applications, for the chosen location. In addition, the system also accesses data held by Cambridgeshire County Council, the first instance of such data sharing which provides a model for closer collaboration between District and County Councils in the future.

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